GameStop Under Fire

Sometimes it seems as if GameStop wants digital game distribution to be the norm, which would most likely put a hurting on a company like them.

The retail video game giant that is GameStop have been opening boxes of the PC version for the new release shooter, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and removing the coupons inside that offer users to get a free copy of the game for OnLive cloud gaming service.

It was announced yesterday by Square Enix (Deus Ex publisher) and OnLive that the coupons would be packed into the boxes of the PC version of the game, allowing buyers to download and play another copy of the game via OnLive’s network which is cloud based (a $50 value).

So here is the thing, GameStop has its very own digital distribution platform in which GameStop sees this coupon deal as a way of helping promote one of their competitors. So GameStop sent out a letter to their employees instructing them to “immediately remove and discard the OnLive coupon from all the regular PC versions of Deus Ex: Human Revolution”. This has been officially confirmed by GameStop.

“Regarding the Deus Ex OnLive Codes: GameStop’s policy is that we do not promote competitive services without a formal partnership,” GameStop says on its Facebook page. “Square Enix packed a competitor’s coupon within the PC version of Deus Ex: Human Revolution without our prior knowledge and we did pull these coupons.”

It makes for uneasy feelings knowing a company is tampering with a product just to keep consumers from saving some money by allowing them a free download of a game that happens to be on a competitors network. Not to mention the fact that if you so much as walk out of a GameStop store with a bran new game, open it and turn around and walk back in, they will consider the game used and not give you the full amount back that you paid, even with a receipt. It also doesn’t sit well when you watch them take new games out of their cases and put them into a paper sleeve simply so they can use the boxes for the game on their shelves and still consider the game new charging full price for it as they take that same game back out of the paper sleeve and put it back into the original case it came in when you purchase that game. Of course that last part is what they do with console games, not PC versions, unless the PC version has coupons that is.

GameStop is very assuring that the game should be fine, even with them breaking open the case.

“While the new products may be opened, we fully guarantee the condition of the discs to be new. If you find this to not be the case, please contact the store where the game was purchased and they will further assist,” the company states.

Square Enix and OnLive have not yet made a formal response to the situation.